Listen
by superwoman1015
Summary: She wanted him to listen, but he wouldn't. She wanted the pain to go away, but it wouldn't. She just wanted it to all stop. Rated for adult themes.


**Authros note: **This was written in response to one of the prompt tables over on the mentalist fic comm on LJ. the prompt was a quote form The Band Perry. It's kind of sad and depressing and wanders a bit, but that's where it goes. Enjoy.

"A penny for my thoughts, oh no I'll sell them for a dollar  
They're worth so much more after I'm a gonner  
And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'  
Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'"  
-"If I Die Young" The Band Perry

**Listen**

Alone in her house, not a home, and she knew that this was it. Bottle to her lips, deep pull, not feeling the burn, too numb for that. He never listened, and it was too late. Should she stop him? Some would say yes, but she wasn't going to listen to that now. He wouldn't listen, why should she be any better.

She'd left work when they got the phone call. Everyone thought that she had gone to him, but she knew that would only end in heart ache, that she would only end up hating herself and him. SO she didn't go after him. But it hadn't worked; she already hated herself for not being able to stop him, for not being able to stop loving him. Not that it mattered. He never listened.

She took another swig, looking at the bottle of pills on the table next to the empty glass. She hurt, there was so much pain. She just wanted to get him to stop—to listen. But she knew it was never going to happen, he wasn't going to listen. If he'd listened he wouldn't have left her this morning, promising to come back, when he knew he wouldn't be able to.

Her thoughts were scrambled; bits and pieces of past conversations came floating to the top mixing with the alcohol and the pain killers for a strange sort of waking dream.

"_I love you; I would never hurt you, not on purpose."_

"_I will find Red John, when I do I will kill him."_

"_I love you. I won't leave."_

Even in her state it was easy to spot the truth and the lies. The call this morning, another Red John case, tearing him from her arms. She didn't have to be a psychic to know that he wasn't coming back when they got as close to Red John they had. And then he'd left. He wasn't coming back. Not in a way she could still have him.

This was the way it always was. Why did she always love men who hurt her and left her? Jane being just the latest in a long string of men who had only ended up hurting her. Before him there had been Chuck, the lawyer she'd been with just before Jane joined the team; he'd only tried to get close to her to get information on a case that he was trying to win, and before that Bosco, not in love with his wife, and yet, not in love with her enough to make a difference.

Before him Jack, hot and sexy and the quintessential bad boy who thought that dating a cop to be would keep him out of jail when he tried to rob the local pawn shop. And the epitome of men she'd loved and been left by was her father. Every little girl's first love. He'd taken the loss of her mother out on the whole family and she hadn't been able to stop him. When he'd died...saying that she wasn't necessarily sad would be an understatement, but she had still cried at his funeral.

And she would be crying again, over a man she loved who wouldn't listen, who didn't love her back. They never did. She just couldn't deal with it any more. She opened the already almost empty bottle; the pain just wouldn't go away, why couldn't he listen? She put another two, three, four; she lost count, pills into her mouth swallowing them down with another swig of hard liquor. She had the thought, in the back of her head, that this wasn't good, but she didn't care, she was simply trying to stop the pain.

Pain, it made her think of her brothers, the people in her life that she should be closest to. She wanted to be, but she'd pushed them away, or they'd pushed her away. It had been so long since she'd talked to any of them. She grabbed her phone from where she'd dropped it on the stand right inside of the door, stumbling slightly with the buttons and the stand and her feet.

"Tommy? It's Teresa, I just wanted to say I love you, that it's been too long." Her voice was slurred, but she didn't notice, the message she was leaving not really penetrating the haze. "I love you. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you." Before she hung up she paused, she still felt like there was something missing. "I love you." The last a mere whisper, but that wasn't important. He needed to know that she loved him.

Messages for her other two brothers, similar but different, and then the phone fell from her hands; she was much more light headed than she had been just ten minutes earlier. She reached for the bottle she'd left sitting on her coffee table, but missed, falling forward off the couch to the floor, hitting her head on the way down, though she didn't notice. She turned, struggling to stand, to sit. She heard a pounding on her door, but she couldn't figure out why, she felt the world spinning around her and closed her eyes to the sensory overload, she just wanted the pain to stop.

Jane pulled up outside Lisbon's apartment. She hadn't come to him, hadn't tried to stop him, but he hadn't done it anyway. Cho had been there, and Rigsby, and Van Pelt. And no one had see Lisbon. He knew that he shouldn't have left. He knew that she was unhappy with what he had planned to do, what he hadn't done. He could have, but her voice had come in the back of his head, and he couldn't do it.

He'd let Cho take care of things as Red John had laughed a deranged manic laugh at him, because he hadn't plunged the knife into him. But that hadn't mattered. Nothing mattered except Lisbon's cell phone going straight to voice mail and her home phone going straight to the answering machine and no one having seen her for ages.

He raced to her place, not caring if they still needed him at the crime scene, this was more important. The lights were on, all the windows lit up, but she didn't answer. He'd seen her car in the parking lot, had known she was there; he rang the door bell, but still no answer. He knocked louder when it occurred to him that he didn't need to keep standing there. He was Patrick Jane! He could—and would—just pick the lock.

He didn't see her at first. Then he saw the mostly empty bottle on the table, next to the pulls spilled all over, not many of them left, three or four, and then he saw her, collapsed on the floor and his heart stopped.

How many times had she told him not to go after Red John; that nothing good would come of it. How long had he known that she wasn't as strong as she appeared?

As he bent over her crumpled body trying to feel a pulse, trying to feel her breath he saw the blood, saw the angel of the coffee table. His hands trembled as he dialed 911; his voice shook as he talked to the operator, his mind raced as he sat there helpless.

He could hear the sirens coming closer, knew that he should call Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt, anyone, but couldn't make himself do it. He watched as the paramedics worked, watched as they wheeled her off, barely registered the questions that the paramedics were asking. He knew that there was a crowd outside her house, and that she would hate that.

He swore to himself that if she didn't make it that this wouldn't be what she was known for. He would make sure that she was remembered the way she lived, strong to a fault, strong to the end, strong till he broke her. He should have listened, he never should have left.

And if she made it...If she made it he would listen, he would listen to her. He would listen.


End file.
